Willow's secret revealed
by pezgirl1
Summary: Buffy finds out about a family tragedy that had befallen the Rosenbergs many years before, why her parents were so distant and why Willow and Xander wanted to help her fight the forces of darkness.


"So, why are you're parents so…I dunno, distant

Disclaimer: I don't own the Buffy characters, I do own Danielle though. The song at the end belongs to Phil Collins' song 'You'll be in my heart'.

Spoilers: for Willow's relationships with Oz, Tara. Kennedy, season 6, what happened to Warren Mears and end season 7. that's pretty much it.

A/N: I'm sure I've rated this story correctly- if I haven't let me know.

"So, why are you're parents so…I dunno, distant?" asked Buffy one evening. She was running the hairbrush through her blonde hair slowly and carefully as she looked at her best friend's reflection in the mirror.

Her best friend in question, Willow Rosenberg, was sitting on her bed looking at a math book quietly; the girl looked up at her surprised and asked, "What makes you think they're distant?"

Buffy sighed and tossed her hairbrush onto a chair before turning to look properly at Willow, "We've been buddies for almost two years and I haven't seen your parents at all, and when I drop you off at your house after patrol the house is ALWAYS empty…you also never talk about them." The Slayer frowned slightly in concern at her younger friend. "And I mean, it's your sixteenth birthday coming up soon-

"It's in five MONTHS, Buffy," protested Willow who was starting to get defensive. She almost never got defensive unless they were on the subject of her family.

The blonde shook that interruption off, "Are they going to be at home on your birthday?" she watched the discomfort start to set in on her friend's body language and facial expression. "It's your 'sweet-sixteenth', isn't that supposed to be special?"

Willow looked away from her and stared evasively at the dresser, "T-they'll be there, Buff…" she trailed off unconvincingly.

The blonde of the two shook her head in disbelief and was about to ask something else when Xander Harris cut in, "Buff, don't."

She looked at the dark-haired teenager in puzzlement, "What?" she looked back at Willow before turning back to Xander. "I'm sensing this is a thing that only Willow and Xander can know….that's cool." She went back to brushing her hair as her posture conveyed her hurt feelings.

Willow sighed and looked at her lifelong best friend; Xander was her best friend of fourteen years; they had met in Daycare- she had been nineteen months old while Xander was two and a half years of age. Despite their lacking vocabulary they had clicked instantly and communicated through use of actions, expressions, smiles, hugs and body-language. When two year old Cordy had walked up to the redhead and pushed her over onto her butt, an action that had resulted in her crying rather hard, Xander had starting throwing crayons and toys at the young bully and yelling in unintelligible toddler-talk.

The teachers had had to stop Xander continually pelting Cordy with toys and from that day forward Cordy had despised the both of them whilst Willow and Xander had become friends and sources of unconditional love and comfort to each other.

They had shared everything; Xander had known her before her parents were distant and when they were GOOD parents, loving parents who were attentive and cared how she was feeling. Xander had known her little sister, Danielle.

Willow looked at Xander with an unreadable expression on her now-pale face, "Should I?" her voice trembled as she spoke.

The question caught Buffy's attention immediately and the blonde turned to look at her intently, she looked at Xander, who looked at Willow then back at her; Xander nodded, "I think you should do what you're comfortable with."

The redhead looked at the blonde in indecision on her face, Buffy had been her best friend for almost two years now; had saved her life and Xander's countless times and was completely loyal to them.

A silent beat later Willow had her answer, "Okay."

Buffy sat on the bed next to Willow, Xander sat on the redhead's other side and they fell silent waiting for their best friend to speak.

"My parents aren't home much," she started nervously. "They spend most of their time working, traveling over most of the world on talks, lectures and other stuff. They come home maybe once or twice a month, but it's kinda like they aren't there. Ya'know, like their minds are on other things besides me and being parents."

After a pause Buffy spoke, "So, they're workaholics? Sucks."

Willow shook her head, eyes unusually bright, "They weren't always like that; they gave up eight years ago when I was seven." She looked at her hands as if interested her greatly.

"What changed?" asked the blonde concerned and curious.

Willow took a deep breath, "Danielle was murdered." She felt Xander put an arm around her shoulders in silent support.

"Danielle?"

"My little sister," she heard Buffy's sharp intake of breath and looked down abruptly. Great, here comes the pity; the 'I'm sorrys'. She hated that, she didn't want that, especially from Buffy.

After a few minutes silence Buffy asked, "What happened, Will?"

Willow turned teary eyes towards Buffy, "U-until two years ago, I didn't know. My sister turned up d-dead just like about hundred others in Sunnydale…"

Buffy had a horrified look on her face, "Oh god, Will."

The redhead gave a humorless laugh, "It wasn't PCP gangs like I thought it was- vampires or demons, I dunno what. But they took my sister….they took my parents too."

She turned her tear-brimmed eyes away from Buffy, "They changed after that, they pulled away from me. I think Dannie's death killed them inside, it really did. Her death took the life right out of them."

She felt Buffy put her arm around her shoulder so that both of her friends were giving her one-armed hugs; but it didn't stop the usual coldness from seeping into her soul, "I can still remember it, I know Xander can."

Xander nodded, "We were having a sleepover at Willow's house when the doorbell rang." He snorted grimly. "I almost choked on my brownie when I heard Mrs. Rosenberg scream from downstairs; but Will was down there like a shot before I'd even got to my feet."

Willow nodded recounting the night in her head, "I thought it was just a mean joke some kids had done on my parents." She could still picture her four-year-old sister's bloodless dead body on the doorstep, empty eyes staring up at her; devoid of the usually energetic, naturally cheerful twinkle. Her dad had quickly pulled her into a hug so that she would be facing away from Dannie's glazed eyes to spare her the sight. But he had been too slow, she'd seen all she had needed to see to make her realize that she'd never be able to play, laugh or bicker with her kid sister again.

"The police had come after that," she said. "Not that they did much good, you know what they're like."

Buffy nodded, knowingly. The police were completely useless in Sunnydale.

"Danielle became just another statistic in Sunnydale's mortality ratio," she rolled her eyes skyward and quickly brushed the few tears that had fell from her eyes. "My parents just threw themselves into their work after that. My birthday became another reason to try to forget about what had happened; we had our birthdays on the same day. They couldn't find even the slightest piece of closure or justice in Danielle's d…death. Nothing could be done about it. We didn't know why it had happened, who was to blame, who TO blame and it appeared that the murdering bastards had gotten away with it."

Buffy shook her head slowly, "God, it must have killed them. And you." She wouldn't know what she'd do if that happened to her, well, okay she knew exactly what she'd do- rip Sunnydale apart to find the perps.

Willow sighed softly, "It killed my parents, that's for sure."

Xander nodded, "Dannie must have been pulled out through kitchen window without her parents noticing," he remembered. "Will, Dan and I were eating chocolate walnut brownies, Dannie finished her juice so she went downstairs to ask for some more-"

Willow smiled faintly, Dannie was a huge juice-junky- couldn't go without it. She always clutched her kiddy cup in her small, pale hands and jumped up and down looking hopefully at her mom and dad; chanting the usual mantra of "Juice, juice, juice!"

"-but she never came back up," Xander finished, eyes downcast at the memory.

"Xander and I just thought that my parents were holding back on giving her more juice, that would explain why she was taking so much time to come back upstairs. We were going to go and see what was taking her so long when my mom screamed."

Willow had just thought that her sister was getting another asthma attack, "It just wasn't that kind of attack…" she muttered quietly to herself.

Buffy's Slayer-hearing of course picked that right up, "What do you mean? Another kind of attack?"

"Dannie was asthmatic," Willow explained carefully. "She always got an attack when she was really upset." She could remember a few such times when she had seen what exactly asthma was and how bad it was for her sister. It made her see, as a child, how possible it was to lose someone she cared about- even if they drove her up the wall sometimes. She and Dannie hadn't really fought that much, most of the time the bickering was fun and wasn't anything serious. They had played together pretty well and had grudgingly learned to share their toys even if the other was in the middle of using it. They'd fought over the toys, sure, but somehow her little sis had always won.

Flashback

Six year old Willow Rosenberg held a stuffed bear in both her hands, she moved it around on the floor and tried to make it look like the toy bear was walking on its hind legs; which was funny to the young redhead seeing as she knew that bears didn't walk around like people did. She smiled to herself and bounced the bear up and down, up and down.

She looked up to see that her three-year-old sister Danielle was crawling up to her; that was pretty funny too, her sister could walk perfectly fine but for some reason she liked crawling around more…which she guessed was okay, it was kinda fun sometimes. "Can I have da bear?" she asked as she sat in a kneeling position.

Willow frowned, slightly tenser that she was a few seconds ago, "I haven't done playin' with it." She looked for the bear in her hands to her sister's rather large green eyes that looked exactly like her own; in fact it was rather funny how they looked so much alike; the only difference would be their ages and the fact that Dannie's hair was more strawberry-blonde whilst hers was a rather fiery shade of red.

The older of the two siblings pulled the bear stubbornly towards herself as the younger latched onto one of the bears legs, "I'm still playing with it!" she protested. She pulled it back more.

Danielle whimpered and began using more force to pull the toy out of her sister's hands, "I wanna play-

Willow flushed slightly and turned towards the open door to the bedroom they both shared, "Moooommm! Dannie's being a big meanie!" she noticed then that the girl was pulling harder; knowing that she had more strength in her arms than her sister had in hers she also started pulling.

The three-year-old was slowly pulled up from her kneeling position and was now half-falling towards her older sister, her left knee lost its footing on the carpet and she toppled forwards, head hitting the other girl's knee. She put her hand to the painful area on her forehead and started crying.

The redheaded six-year-old looked at her younger sister with a conflicted look on her face as she wondered what to do, her eyes began to tear up and she wanted to say 'sorry' but no sound came out; she shook her sister's shoulder trying to get her to stop crying so much. She pressed the bear into her sister's hands to see if that would make her crying stop, she vaguely noticed that she was breathing strangely, sounding more like her mom when she snored in the night; whatever it was that happening to her it was starting to scare the older girl, "Mooomm!?"

Whatever it was she didn't think it was a good thing, it certainly didn't SOUND like a good thing, "You can have the toy. Please. Moomm!" she really didn't want the bear anymore, she just wanted Dannie to stop turning that horrible blue colour. "Moooommm! Daaaaad!"

She felt a mix of fear and relief as she heard someone run up the stairs to them, Ira Rosenberg ran into the room and looked at both his daughters; her dad muttered a bad word and ran forward, picked Dannie up into his arms and told her to follow him, or in his exact words "C'mon". She complied immediately.

She almost halfway down the stairs by the time her dad was opening the front door, her mom came in and all the colour seemed to drain from her face as she looked at her youngest daughter; she told her husband to get to the hospital before she ran halfway up the stairs and grabbed her oldest daughter into her arms.

Willow hung on to her mom as she was carried out of the house and into the car, luckily the hospital was only a couple of minutes away; soon they were bursting into the ED and asking for help.

They were told to wait in the 'Waiting room' and ten minutes her mom asked her daughter what had happened, Willow looked away guiltily, "Dannie wanted the bear, but I-I was still playing with it and Dannie started crying, she turned blue, mommy. I didn't mean it!"

She felt worse than that time when she'd thrown that book called 'the very hungry caterpillar' at Xander a year ago for stealing her Barbie and drawing on the doll's clothes with dark felt tip pens and thinking that Xander was going to hate her and not want to play with her anymore. What if Dannie hated her now?

"Sheila, she couldn't have known about Dannie's asthma," said Ira quietly to his incensed wife. "She's only six."

Willow sobbed and felt her dad hug her as she continued to say 'sorry' over and over again through her crying;

Her dad just kept hugging her.

A month later Danielle had finally been discharged from the hospital and had been taken home by her dad; her anxious mom and sister were waiting at home for the other half of their family to return.

Willow clung nervously to her mom's hand as her dad walked in holding her sister, they walked towards them and her mom said, "Dannie? Honey?"

Dannie lifted her head tiredly from her dad's shoulder and then looked at her older sister as her mom pulled away from the hug, "Wiyo, are you still gonna play with me? You can have da bear if you wan'."

The redhead looked down tearfully as her younger sister was lowered from their dad's arms and placed on the floor; the toddler walked over to her; wrapped her arms around the older girl's waist and hugged her whilst still looking up into her face. Her chin brushed against Willow's chest as her large green eyes stared into another set of large green eyes, "Don't you like me no more?" Dannie asked sadly.

Willow sobbed and said, "I don't want the bear, I'm sorry I hurt you." She hugged her little sister tightly as if she didn't want to let her go.

"That's okay," Dannie looked at her mom and dad and then looked at Willow. "We still friends, right?"

Sheila smiled, "Your sister was very worried about you, Dannie."

Willow nodded in agreement still hugging her little sister and said, "I still wanna be friends, do you?" she pulled away slightly as if afraid of rejection and then relaxed slightly when she felt Dannie nodding her head against her chest in a 'yes'. "That's good."

After that, Dannie had been put to bed so that she could rest, Willow climbed into the bed as well and hugged her sister. The next thing she knew she was being woken up by their mom for school the next morning; they had not woken Dannie though, the girl would not go back to daycare for the next few weeks because their parents were still worried about her.

Ira and Sheila Rosenberg both took it in turns to stay with Dannie for the entire day while the other went to work and picked Willow up from second grade school.

End Flashback

A year later Dannie had died and everything had changed.

Willow came out of her daydream to see Buffy and Xander staring at her; the blonde smiled sadly, "You really loved your sister didn't you?"

She nodded, "I still dream about her, bad dreams and good dreams. But more bad than good since I found out about vampires and stuff." She looked at Buffy. "The forces of darkness killed my sister, they killed my parents inside and then took them away from me; if it wasn't for Xander…"

Buffy nodded in realization, "Is that why you were so determined to help Giles and me, ya'know and fight vampires?" that would explain it, she had known two years ago when she looked into the younger girl's eyes that she wasn't going to be fighting these things alone.

"Absolutely, demons and vamps need to be killed," stated Willow firmly. "It just made me all the more angry when they took Jesse, I need to fight, Buffy. If you hadn't let me help I would have starting fighting them by myself anyway."

"You wouldn't have been strong enough to."

"I wouldn't have cared, Buffy," she replied. "I loved Dannie, I loved- still love my parents, nothing could have stopped me from at least trying to fight them."

Xander nodded, "And nothing would have stopped me from helping Willow."

Whether or not Buffy and Giles would have agreed to let the two teens, fourteen and sixteen, help they still would have found their way into fighting in their own way; they would have probably died in the attempt without the blonde's skills.

The next few minutes were filled with silence, a comfortable comrade type of silence that could only be achieved by a team who had one thing in common and one goal in mind; to beat the enemy and survive the fight.

Xander looked at both of his girls and asked, "Are we ever going to talk about this again, after we've gone back to our own houses?" a pause.

"Absolutely not," answered Willow smiling slightly. "I-I just, I don't like talking about it. I get enough reminders when we stake vampires; I get them when I walk into my room everyday, mine and Dannie's room. Then, I get them every time my parents aren't around me; which is most of the time. I don't need extra reminders." She really didn't.

"Right," said Buffy nodding.

For the next five years they would not mention Willow's sister again; her name would never be said out loud but it would always be in their minds and in their thoughts. Giles would never know about Danielle, Oz might have been told if he and Willow had been together longer, Tara might have been told had she not been killed by Warren, Kennedy- though Willow did love her, would never know. They weren't nearly as close to each other as she and Tara had been; they might be in time if they persisted and kept working at their relationship.

They never forgot about Dannie, Willow would always remember her through her dreams, her actions and her parents' lack of attention; she would remember her whenever she saw that old stuffed bear sitting on her dresser until Sunnydale collapsed and took the bear with it.

Only then was she needlessly reminded that Buffy and Xander knew about her sister, they gave her sympathetic looks and hugs as she mourned and thought about Dannie and the memories that came and went with that stuffed bear that two siblings had fought over so many years back.

The memory wasn't that far away from Willow's mind, as years and years passed after Sunnydale's collapse she wondered whether she'd ever be able to tell her wife and two daughters, five year old Tara and three year old Danielle, about their deceased aunt and her baby sister Danielle Rosenberg.

End

Come stop your crying, it will be all right  
Just take my hand, hold it tight  
I will protect you from all around you  
I will be here don't you cry

For one so small, you seem so strong  
My arms will hold you keep you safe and warm  
This bond between us cant be broken  
I will be here don't you cry

And you'll be in my heart  
Yes, you'll be in my heart  
From this day on  
Now and forever more  
You'll be in my heart  
No matter what they say  
You'll be here in my heart  
Always

Why can't they understand the way we feel  
They just don't trust what they can't explain  
I know were different but deep inside us  
We're not that different at all

And you'll be in my heart  
Yes, you'll be in my heart  
From this day on  
Now and forever more  
You'll be in my heart  
No matter what they say  
You'll be here in my heart  
Always

Don't listen to them, cause what do they know  
We need each other, to have and to hold  
They'll see in time, I know

When destiny calls you, you must be strong  
I may not be with you, but you gotta hold on  
They'll see in time, I know

Well show them together cuz...

You'll be in my heart  
I believe, you'll be in my heart  
I'll be there from this day on  
Now and forever more

You'll be in my heart  
No matter what they say  
You'll be here in my heart always

Always...  
I'll be with you  
I'll be there for you always  
Always and always  
Just look over your shoulder  
Just look over your shoulder  
Just look over your shoulder  
I'll be there always


End file.
